I love comic books and comic book movies, but one of my biggest pet peeves the the constant need by the movie studios to retell the origin stories of widely known characters like Batman, Spiderman, and Superman. These stories have been told to death,please move along.
If you are going to going to introduce the general public to a new character like Green Lantern or Iron Man, who the world at large may have heard of before but knew nothing about then doing an origin movie makes sense. The same is not true for characters like Bataman, Spiderman, Superman, and even the X-Men at this point because they have had multiple movies to tell their origin.
What are the movie studios afraid of? I am going to give two examples of up coming movies and how I think the origins should be handled:
Man of Steel--I don't have a lot of faith or interest in this movie for one simple reason: This is a retread movie,pure and simple. Want to watch Superman's origin and see him fight General Zod? Rent Superman 1&2. Is Superman's Rogues Gallery so weak that Lex and Zod are the only viable villains?
Warner Brothers should scrap Man of Steel and go back to the drawing board. As for new/different villains, how about Solomon Grundy?
Captain America: The Winter Soldier--I expect to see Cap's origin to be dealt with in flashbacks as he tries to adjust life in modern day America. I don't really expect it to be a primary focus in future movies though.
Maybe it is a question of different studios and their willingness to take risks. Marvel is willing to take chances and it paying off. Warner Brothers seems content to to play it safe.